The Happiest Girl in the World

Delia Fratila has won a car in a lottery organized by a juice manufacturer. Now she and her parents travel to the big city, where she has to appear in a commercial in return. It isn't much fun for her: The shooting is strenuous and in the breaks between the endless repetitions of the same silly scene she has exhausting arguments with her parents, who have very self-serving ideas about how the prize should be used. The whole story fits in the course of a single summer's day and takes place at one location in downtown Bucharest. But for all the lightheartedness with which Radu Jude has brought this little episode to the screen, it tells a comedic and sometimes sad tale about the many forms of desires, longings and illusions which money can stir up. The promise that the consumer's world can make any smalltown girl in today's Romania the happiest girl in the world remains a dream that will only come true in the commercials. Delia has very different ideas about her personal happiness. At the end of the day when the sun hangs low above the dusty heat of the city and filming is over at last, she has at any rate taken a first small step towards her goal. (Berlinale)